“Our boys are leaving for France.” That is how the Ungheni District Council announced, on 28 June, that a team of children from the district boarded a coach for Montmorillon, a town in western France, to represent the Republic of Moldova at an international football tournament. On July 4, on the pitch there, they will play alongside teams from France, Romania and Ukraine.
This is not just any match, but a competition with a name and a history — the “Friendship Cup”. And the journey of the team from Zagarancea to Montmorillon actually tells a story about how town twinnings work when someone takes them seriously.
The “Friendship Cup”, four countries on one pitch in France
The tournament is listed right in the official agenda of Montmorillon town hall (Vienne department, in western France). According to the announcement, on Saturday, 4 July 2026, the U16 and U17 youth teams will meet international teams in a friendly tournament “within the «Friendship Cup»”.
There will be four flags on the pitch. The French hosts field their own youth, U16 and U17. The rest come from far away, and Montmorillon town hall names them one by one: “FC Zagarancea, coming from Moldova, FC Khotyn coming from Ukraine, and the Mihai Roman academy of Putna–Vicovu de Sus, coming all the way from Romania”. In other words, exactly the four countries the Ungheni District Council also named — France, Moldova, Ukraine and Romania — each with its own youth team.
How the team from Zagarancea reaches all the way to Montmorillon
The answer is in one word: twinning. Two of them, to be precise.
The Zagarancea commune officially twinned with the Putna commune, in Suceava county, on 24 January 2025 — on the Day of the Union of the Principalities, right at Putna Monastery. The act was signed by mayors Gheorghe Coroamă, for Putna, and Vasile Gaviuc, for Zagarancea. And Putna, in turn, has been twinned since 2013 with the French town of Montmorillon. That is how Putna becomes the “connecting point” the district council also speaks of: through it, the children from Zagarancea reach the pitch in France.
The man who gathered the team is Sebastian Andriuța, a physical-education teacher in Zagarancea — the same one who also set up a museum in the village. At the signing of the twinning with Putna, he described how children come back from joint activities better and more knowledgeable about history, and summed it all up in one sentence:
This is how unity, twinning, good things are made.
Sebastian Andriuța, physical-education teacher in Zagarancea, at the signing of the twinning with Putna
According to the Ungheni District Council, Andriuța gathered boys “from several localities in Ungheni district”, whom he had coached in the past — so the squad is not only from Zagarancea, but from a wider group of children across the district.
Last year, in Putna, Zagarancea won
The tournament is not at its first edition. The four countries first met in July 2025, but on the other side of this story — in Putna, in Romania. Then, according to regional press from Suceava, the players were children up to 15 years old, and the team from Zagarancea won.
It is a reciprocity that shows the twinning has not stayed on paper: in 2025, the team from Zagarancea was a guest in Putna and left with the trophy; in 2026 it plays on, in France, in the town with which Putna has been twinned for more than a decade.
Ukraine, at the same table
One detail should not be overlooked. Among the four teams there is also a Ukrainian one — FC Khotyn — from a country at war. The fact that Ukrainian children play football alongside children from Moldova, Romania and France, on a pitch in Western Europe, turns a youth tournament into a small gesture of normality and solidarity between peoples — exactly the idea the organizers put into the very name of the competition.
On July 4, on the pitch in Montmorillon, a team of children from Ungheni district takes the field for the Republic of Moldova — in a tournament opened by a twinning signed a year and a half ago, in Putna.
The tournament details (date, age categories and the four teams) come from the official agenda of Montmorillon town hall. The details about the Zagarancea–Putna twinning and the quote from coach Sebastian Andriuța come from Putna Monastery’s account of the signing, on 24 January 2025. The year of the Montmorillon–Putna twinning (2013) is taken from the twinning page of Montmorillon town hall. The details about the first edition of the tournament, held in Putna in July 2025, come from regional press in Suceava. The departure announcement and the thanks belong to the Ungheni District Council. The exact number of children who left, the villages they come from and how the trip is funded have not been made public; at the 2025 edition in Putna, the Moldovan children were hosted by local families.